01.30.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 8:16 am
Today is CD25 for me and she usually comes on CD25 or 26. But I have absolutely NO signs that she’s on her way this month. I guess it’s because of the BCPs, eh? But to make matters worse, I think I definitely have a yeast infection!!
That tube of Metronidazole gel that Dr. Abdullah had prescribed for me back in 2004 is working!! WHEW!! Thank God I didn’t throw it away (it expires in 2007). Talk about INSTANT relief!!! WHEW!! The odorless, clumpy, icky discharge that looks like cottage cheese is starting to go away too. What a relief! I thought I was going to scratch my hooha off!!
AF is due any day now and I plan to continue with a twice a day dosage for at least 5 days.
Earlier, I read an article on the web that said that the increased estrogen in BCPs can cause a yeast infection. OH GREAT!! Now we’re baking bread!! I’ve only had a few yeast infections in my whole life but I’m sure that this is a yeast infection since I know it’s not a sexually transmitted disease!
Sunday is my last day on the pill before my baseline on Monday so I’m hoping to clear this thing up before next week!! Heaven forbid it delay my IVF cycle!! OH HELL NAWW!!
Good thing I’ve got a follow-up appointment with Dr. McKeeby on Wednesday. I’m going to definitely ask him about this!
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01.29.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 8:10 am
This has been a WEIRD cycle to say the least. These birth control pills have been having a wacky effect on my body in a little way. Of course the fact that it suppressed ovulation this month has been funny. But also the fact that FF doesn’t know what to do with my temps is another funny. Earlier on CD9, it said I ovulated, then a day or so later, it took the coverlines away. Yesterday…THERRRE BAAAACK! and AF is due either CD 25 or 26. This will be quite interesting to see what she does.
I’ve also been having a nasty case of vaginal dryness!! I have had absolutely NO CM to speak of for the past few weeks and it’s driving me CRAZY!! Yesterday, I went to the bathroom and it was all I could do to keep from scratching my hooha off because it’s now irritated too. Lamar, bless his heart, bought me some stuff that you insert to relieve vaginal dryness and that worked but now I’ve got a yellowy discharge which makes me think the beginnings of a yeast infection are brewing. So last night, I used some of the prescription stuff that Dr. Abdullah had prescribed back in 2004 that I never used. Luckily, it doesn’t expire until 2007 so I used a douche and inserted the stuff before bed and I feel SOOO much better today. I’m going to keep it up for the next 5 days because my baseline ultrasound is next Monday and I don’t want them saying anything to me about a yeast infection delaying our IVF cycle!!
Lamar and I have made the decision to buy a bigger house with the Hopkins settlement. We looked at the bottom line of things and weighed the neighborhood comps and realized that if we sunk $200K into this house, we’d only get about $85K back if we had to sell it. That’s just not good businesess so we opted to take the same money and go up in price to find a bigger home right here in Bowie. It’s been fun looking but I know for a fact that I’m not going to relish the idea of packing and moving during the semester. But who knows?? At this rate, we probably won’t see the money for a while so I can relax about looking and packing.
We saw an utterly BEAUTIFUL home sitting on 3 acres on Normal School Road yesterday. The house was absolutely PERFECT!!!! It had FOUR levels and was over 6700 sq. ft!! That was my ultimate DREAM HOME!! But I doubt we’d get a settlement that would pay us enough to buy a $975K house!! Even the smaller one next door which was just as nice was for $850K! Those two houses were PERFECT but lacked a neighborhood in which other children could play like Saddlebrook. We saw a beautiful house sitting on almost a 1/2 an acre for $699K. DAYUM!!! I wish we had the money to buy it because that would have been perfect. It even sat near a bike trail that led to a playground. Can’t you imagine me putting the baby(ies) in a stroller and walking them up to the park to play? Ahhh…
Anyway, I was utterly EXHAUSTED yesterday and played hooky from the BOE and now I’m playing hooky from church. I’M TIRED!! I need a break!! BOE meets this Saturday so I’ve got to put the full court press on to get my work for Wesley done as well as for BOE. I think I might go to the library today for some peace and quiet. I love Lamar & Vanessa very much but they are so distracting. But who am I kidding? My brain is not cooperating these days! I just can’t focus! I have IVF on the brain and that’s the only book I want to read!! My house is slowly looking a mess to so I need to jump on that today as well.
I also need to exercise today. For the next 2 days, I’ll be on a liquid diet in preparation for the colonoscopy on Tuesday. YUCK! Maybe I’ll loose a few pounds as an end result. But hopefully all will be well with that and I can officially rule out my stomach as causing me problems. If I don’t get this weight under control, I’m going to be miserable when I get older!! My BMI is like a gazillion % now!! UTTERLY RIDICULOUS!!
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01.16.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 8:07 am
Today is CD11 which is has been one of my ovulation days in the past. Even though I’m on birth control pills, I have still been temping to see what my cycle does and how it is different because of the Pill. I was really SHOCKED to see that my temp shot up to 99 today! HUH!! WHAT?? What in the world is THAT all about?
My stomach has been giving me the blues for the last 2 days. It started after BOE and continued all day Sunday. I am hoping and praying that today won’t be bad. I went to see a Gastroenterologist last week and he said that he thinks the rectal bleeding I experienced a few weeks ago was just hemmoroids and that the stomach cramping I have been having might be due to my system still not being back to normal and out of rhythm after the surgery. I have been trying to drink plenty of water to keep my bowels hydrated because I noticed that the hemmoroid thing occured when trying to pass a big, DRY stool.
Lord knows this stomach thing is going to have to get itself under control on the PDQ before I start IVF. It’s going to be bad enough to try to arrange the schedule around school, and to cope with side effects from the shots than to also deal with an crampy, upset stomach!!
Me to my stomach: GET IT TOGETHER DAMMIT!!
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01.14.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 8:01 am
YAWN!! Phew!!
There’s not much to report IVF-wise these days. We’re just waiting. Waiting to begin, waiting for the insurance to give us the clear, waiting for time to pass into February…JUST WAITING!! This is definitely the BORING part!
Wednesday, we have the IVF class which is something to look forward to but still we have about 2 weeks until anything else happens. I am going to try to schedule a meeting with Dr. McKeeby just to review everything. I want to ask him about why he chose the Antagon protocol over some of the others and I’d like to find out more information about the fluid they found in my fallopian tubes during the sonohystogram.
Today was the first session of the Board of Examiners. It was nice (as always) being able to see everybody and be with my friends. I was shocked to see that my friends Melanie Gamble and Melissa Edwards are PREGNANT! Melanie is due at the end of March and she looked utterly MISERABLE during her time there. They went and found a rocking chair for her and put a pad in it because those chairs are really uncomfortable and she had someone carry her heavy bags too. That is something I DO NOT want to happen for me, especially if next year is my last year. I don’t mind being pregnant during the Board but I’d rather have the baby either BEFORE or AFTER BOE and Annual Conference is through. That’s a lot to try to maneuver and heaven forbid if I miss some sessions because I’m in the hospital!
Melissa looked like she was due a little later on but you never know. Melissa should be in her early or mid 30′s but Melanie is MY age (or not too far off). She carried her first baby during our Admission year and now 3 years later is having baby #2. I tried not to show that I had Iwannababyitis but I think I might have given myself away when she mentioned that she was going to do one of those 3D/4D sonograms and knew of a place somewhere in Potomac that did them KEWL!
If we have a single baby, I may not necessarily want to know the sex, but if we are having TWINS, HECK YEAH!!!
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01.11.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 7:57 am
I think the hardest thing (by far) during this whole IVF process for me is going to be the bloodwork. I had to have 2 nurses stick me a total of 6 times in order to get 3 stinking vials of blood for the HIV, Hepatitis tests that they should have been able to do on Sunday but my veins wouldn’t cooperate! Oh Lord, and they have to do how many more blood tests??? Heaven help me!
I’m back after a LOONG day today but things went well at Dr. McKeeby’s office!! I went for my mock embryo transfer, sonohystogram, and bloodwork this morning. Actually Dr. Mottla did it. No signs of fibroids!!! He said they’re all gone and the size and shape of my uterus looks good! Truth be told, the sono wasn’t bad at all! Not nearly as painful as a HSG! They shoot some saline solution up into the uterus to measure the size and shape and see if there are any traces of fibroids, scarring, etc… I barely felt a thing. And the mock embryo transfer was a piece of cake! In that, they basically simulate an actual transfer of an embryo but sticking this catheter like tube in the uterus and gently flush out some other fluid that is supposed to have your fertilzed eggs in it. It was actually kind of cool to watch! But I must admit, when I got up off the table and stood up to get dressed, all the saline solution from the sono started dribbling down my leg like it did when Dr. Abdullah broke my water with Vanessa. EWWW!! You should have seen me waddling over to the sink to get some paper towels with the paper examination gown between my legs!!STRAIGHT COMEDY!
I got a call from my financial counselor Tracy Hopkins today. She thinks we should be prepared to FIGHT Aetna especially if Lamar’s sperm sample has issues with it. I’m down for a fight! I think it would be WRONG of them to reject me. Howard is threatening to kick me off his insurance (the BASTARD)! He hasn’t paid his full child support in YEARS and he has the audacity to squawk about keeping me on insurance when it costs him no extra?? UNBELIEVABLE!! I almost hope that it is Male Factor because I don’t want to feel obligated to his ass for NOTHING!!
Anywhoo…On another note, my meds were delivered before I left the house to go to the clinic this morning! HOORAY!! UPS put it straight in my hands. It’s a big ole’ box too! WOW!! This feels like it’s really happening!! By the end of next month, I could be…I might be…WHEW!!
Yup…in spite of the rain, today was a good day!
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01.10.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 7:12 pm
I GOT MY PROTOCOL AND SCHEDULE TODAY!! YIPPEE!!!
Wow!! I still am blown away about how FAST this thing is moving!
I started my BCPs today and will continue them until the first full week in Feb. Then I start the stim meds. ER is slated for 2/20 and ET is tentatively 2/23 (or 2/25)!!! OH MY GOODNESS!! 
Lamar and I did the injections class this morning. It’s a good thing too!! I’m being put on the Antagon Protocol with Bravelle and Menopur, so I don’t get to have any of the easy sub-q shots! (AWW Dang!! And I liked that follistin pen too! Really easy!) Mine are all backside and Lamar is gonna have to do it because I’m a NEEDLE WIMP!! He didn’t do bad but I think icing the area down first will help a great deal. Poor Lamar! He looked like a deer in headlights when he finished giving me the shot!
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01.06.06
Posted in General, Infertility
at 7:04 pm
I’m so excited, I could burst!
Wednesday, I met with Dr. McKeeby at Shady Grove Fertility Center in Annapolis. He was really nice! I brought with me all of my x-rays, HSG imaging, and medical records. He was in utter shock and disbelief when I told him about the surgical sponges. After he reviewed everything, he even offered to serve as an expert witness on my legal case!! KEWL!
He took one look at the HSG and asked right away about possible adhesions at the END of my fallopian tube. HUH??? He read through my medical records and noticed that Dr. Altman contradicted herself in 2 places in my records: 1 where she said she DID find adhesions after the sponge removal and another where she said she didn’t. I told him she never said anything to me. (I guess I can see why now! Hmmph!) He said that the reversal had indeed been successful but the die was puddling at the end of my tube which indicates to him that there must be some sort of scar tissue or something to prevent the egg from going in! AWW DAYUM!! NOT MY ONE GOOD TUBE!!
I must confess. I feel a little betrayed by Dr. Altman. Why didn’t she mention anything about the adhesions? Why didn’t she notice the puddle at the end of my tube? Perhaps that is why she practically RUSHED me off the table and out of the radiology room after the HSG! And then to learn that American Radiology never gave me a copy of the one incriminating ct scan that shows the radiological tags is beyond reprehensible!! Those dirty rats!!
Anyway, based on all that, he’s recommending that we go STRAIGHT TO IVF!
Things progressed pretty quickly after that and have been moving fast ever since!! My head is still spinning from all of this! The first step was to do CD3 bloodwork again along with an ultrasound. Since AF was due on Friday or Saturday, I knew that it would be either Sunday or Monday. AF showed up right on time this morning so SUNDAY IT IS!! 
At the same time, Lamar has to have blood drawn too so he’s coming with me Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Then on Tuesday, we have to turn in his fresh sperm sample and go to a class to learn how to administer the shots I have to take. On Wednesday, I’m having a sonohysterogram done and a mock embryo transfer. Next Wednesday (1/18) is our IVF seminar class and by then I should be well into my first pack of birth control pills and probably even starting my first injections or two!
WHEW!! This is really happening FAST!!!
It blows my mind that there is a possibility that by the end of next month, I could be pregnant!!
My worry is still about Howard’s insurance. I just hope and pray that the claim goes through and they pay for it. But in the event that they say no, Lamar said we could use the money in the bank to pay (WHAT A BLESSING!) because (like Dad said) we’ll probably get it back in the end from the settlement!!
I’m just trying to keep my heart from getting TOO happy about all of this but I can’t help it!!! I’ve been on cloud nine ever since!!
WE’RE GONNA HAVE A BABY ONE DAY SOON!!
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